Smartest Person

[robert blu]

For me it is sometimes to have prints from film and from digital in the same body of work.

This is why for B&W I shoot Delta (100 or 400) which in my opinion is the film most similar to digital.

It works for me but I'm in the content before look camp 🙂

Reading again what I wrote I noticed I did not mention that my film photos are inkjet printed, develop, scan, postprocess, inkjet print is my process.

This is what I mean when I say Delta films give me the possibilities of a more "omogeneous" look mixing film and digital.

Of course a wet darkroom print will be very different...

 

[PKR]

Reading again what I wrote I noticed I did not mention that my film photos are inkjet printed, develop, scan, postprocess, inkjet print is my process.

This is what I mean when I say Delta films give me the possibilities of a more "omogeneous" look mixing film and digital.

Of course a wet darkroom print will be very different...

Hi Robert;

I find that, with pigment prints (digital) i can get a much richer blacks than i could with Silver prints.

Back when printing in a darkroom, i kept things pretty simple. Commercial, and my hobby test prints, were made on Kodak Poly Contrast RC paper. Any personal finished print work was printed on Agfa Brovira or, Portriiga Rapid, double weight. I often used Selenium Toner to enrich the blacks.

With digital printing, and a paper with a deep tooth, blacks can be enhanced by dumping more pigment into select areas. These blacks are much richer (reflect less light) than any i got out of the darkroom.

 

[PKR]

I wanted all my work to be presentable together, film and digital. So I built a profile from a film step wedge that I apply to digital files, then print those on transparency film with an inkjet printer, and contact print them on silver B&W printing paper - either silver chloride or normal enlarging paper. You can tell the difference with a microscope, but not otherwise, and I’ve done controlled tests. Most educated viewers guess exactly the wrong way around - i.e. that the digitally sourced files are film, and the film prints are digital. I’m not sure why.

Marty

That's pretty cool Marty.

I recall, Sebastiao Salgado used a method that sounds similar to what you're doing. But, i imagine, those prints have a unique look?

https://the.me/taking-the-digital-out-of-digital-photography-how-to-get-that-film-like-look/

https://amanostudy.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/genesis-platinum-prints-from-sebastiao-salgado/

 

[willie_901]

First you have to define exactly what you mean by "black-and-white inkjet prints from digital files look like silver prints from film".

I have seen print methods and papers that have similar aesthetics as prints from Tri-X made in the mid 1970s. I have seen digital prints in an art gallery made from slow, medium-format negative scans with a very different aesthetic.

Next you have to think about costs (both money and time). In my opinion, consumer-level giclée printing is inferior to newer technologies. High-end (e.g. Epson 9900) giclée printing is a different story. The paper is just as important as the printing technology.

Commercial print labs offer excellent solutions. They cost is usually higher compared to doing it yourself. The other disadvantage is you become dependent on other people. Initially the process is tedious. You have to spend time making files compatible with the labs production methods and trying different methods and papers. It could take several iterations to get the aesthetic you desire. A large lab may be less expensive than a smaller lab. But results could be more consistent over time with a smaller lab.

In my opinion, consumer level giclée printing is inferior to newer technologies. High-end (e.g. Epson 9900) giclée printing is a different story.

Commercial alternatives to giclée printing include:

o Digital Silver Halide Prints "DSI Digital Silver Prints® are real silver gelatin (silver halide), black & white prints on a fiber base, or a premium RC base paper. DSI Digital Silver Prints® are made from the fusion of modern digital technology and traditional exposure/chemical printing. We use a Lightjet 430 photographic laser printer to expose light sensitive Ilford silver gelatin paper, then process the exposed paper in liquid photo chemistry. DSI Digital Silver Prints have a proven archival superiority and a completely neutral image tone, without color cast. This is simply the best fine art black & white print available from a digital file."

o Light Jet Prints (laser printers and light sensitive media)

"The Durst Lambda and Theta models are widely used in the photographic printing industry to produce digital C-Type prints on light sensitive colour and monochrome papers ... Images are produced by exposing light sensitive material with RGB laser light which is then developed through the relevant chemical process."

"The LightJet printing process uses lasers to expose color in paper. This allows us to create images in the RGB spectrum, which are much more vivid than printing’s usual CMYK. Also, there is no ink and this, no dots or worry about dot gain. "

...Digital B&W prints are produced with archival photographic, light-sensitive papers exposed digitally. ... Whilst the C Type process uses colour papers and chemistry, our HARMAN GDS B&W papers contain no colour dyes and are exposed with B&W chemistry, resulting in ‘true’ blacks with no colour cast.".

I used a local lab with light-jet printers. They offered several types of paper for B&W prints. I was very pleased with the results.

Finally, The Northlight Images web site offers a lot of information on printing B&W images from digital files.

 

[Bill Pierce]

Willie 901 - "First you have to define exactly what you mean by "black-and-white inkjet prints from digital files look like silver prints from film.

I have seen print methods and papers that have similar aesthetics as prints from Tri-X made in the mid 1970s. I have seen digital prints in an art gallery made from slow, medium-format negative scans with a very different aesthetic."


You’re right. I was trying to replicate generously exposed high speed film printed to give a broad range of tones in a final silver print, accepting the fact that there was some compression and loss of values in the lower tones. (sort of the David Vestal approach) Oddly enough, this has not been too difficult with both film scans and digital images inkjet printed by starting out with a file that presents a relatively low contrast version of the image and holds the maximum amount of its brightness range. Most often, I’m using dehaze in LightRoom to simultaneously increase the contrast and lower the dark values until it’s in the “my silver print” inkjet ballpark. A little Gene Smith burning and dodging to draw attention to the main subject and I’m ready to make a test print. What these two men taught me to strive for in the darkroom with silver printing remains the same in inkjet printing and gives a relatively consistent look to my black-and-white work. A lot of other photographers are going to have very different standards and styles in their prints.

 

[willie_901]

Willie 901 - ...What these two men taught me to strive for in the darkroom with silver printing remains the same in inkjet printing and gives a relatively consistent look to my black-and-white work. ...

Sage advice!

 

[airfrogusmc]

Sage advice!

Agree, perfectly said Bill. BTW I really like Vince's B&W. I can only imagine how good the prints look. Eriks work also has a great visual signature to it.